It had been a busy spring and early summer. Foaling was over so it was breeding season for our mares and two studs. The outside mares added to the workload, plus it was a dry time and I was irrigating the hay ground and pastures on top of fencing projects, a big garden, and getting cows out onto summer grass. I’d been too busy to get my hands on the last foal born and was feeling frustrated by that. The mare and her colt had been brought in to be checked and were out in the corral. It was Josie’s turn to go visit with the stud so I’d gone out to the pen to catch her. She was a gentle, broke mare, so that was easy and I was standing outside of the barn waiting for word to bring her on around to the stud. As I’m standing there, arm on Josie’s back and rubbing her withers, I’m wondering to myself just when I would get time to get her colt handled a bit. Today wasn’t the day as I was already behind and we had had several other mares to breed, irrigation water needed changed, and all that. He was a brawny month old foal by this time, not the fresh baby I usually liked to imprint. He probably outweighed me by a bit too. As I’m standing there I feel a presence behind me. Something touched me on the back, then, without hesitation, the colt had pushed his way between his mother and me, then stopped. I was sure surprised! He bent his neck around so he could sniff my front and I slid my arm off of Josie’s back and rubbed my hand down his back, expecting him to move away. He didn’t. I put my other hand out and he sniffed that. Knowing that every horse has an itchy spot somewhere, I touched his neck and started gently scratching. Sure enough, his itchy spot was on the underside of his neck and chest. Pretty soon his lips were twitching as the scratching was sure feeling good. I scratched him head to tail before I was told to bring Josie. As I stepped forward to lead her off, the colt, later named Cord, walked along beside me with my hand on his back. When I stepped away from Josie and let her approach the stud on the other side of the fence, Cord stayed by me and wanted more scratching. I stepped to his other side and scratched it too. That was all the handling it took to have him gentle and liking people. He was bred to be a people oriented horse, but offering himself for some scratching at his age was sure a surprise and all that summer he’d come at a trot to see a person out in the pasture. When the time came and I haltered him, he handled it the same way. He wanted to go with me anyway and leading was a piece of cake. Picking up his feet and all the other things I did were just as easy. I’d handled lots of foals and had experienced some really gentle ones, but never one that insisted on being handled all on his own. It was like he was “born broke” and he never changed.
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....
